In the upcoming legislative session, Kansas child advocates want lawmakers to pass a new option for youths who are about to age out of the system. Under the SOUL initiative, youths could choose their own community of supporting adults.

Outgoing state Rep. Fred Patton spent years serving at the Statehouse and on a school board. Years juggling complex issues of deep public interest left him a changed person. Not the kind of overwhelming personal transformation associated with huge egos and bright lights of the nation's political epicenter in Washington, D.C. No, Patton's realm was the Seaman school district north of Topeka and the domed Capitol in downtown Topeka.

Over the past few years, moderate Republicans have seen their numbers dwindle at the Kansas statehouse, as increasingly ideological lawmakers took charge. A new organization, with former Senate President Steve Morris as a founding board member, hopes to change that equation.

GOP strategist and ad maker Rick Wilson was one of the first prominent Republican voices to oppose Donald Trump, all the way back in 2015. He's now part of the Lincoln Project, a right-leaning pro-democracy group. Wilson is raising the alarm about the stakes of the 2024 presidential election, when Trump and current President Joe Biden will likely be on the ballot once again.

Bruce Chladny, executive director of the Kansas Association of Counties, and Miami County Commissioner Rob Roberts say the Local Ad Valorem Tax Reduction Fund would reduce residential property tax bills. But the Legislature hasn't funded the program since 2003, and Republican leaders have no interest in reviving it now.

Shannon Little, the chapter co-lead for Kansas Moms Demand Action, and organization volunteer Ann Williamson outline their ideas for more gun safety measures.

During a Kansas Reflector podcast, Mark McCormick, deputy executive director of strategic initiatives at the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, discussed racism in the state as seen through the lens of his recent report on Quindaro, “Same Water Comin’ Round: Quindaro as a Vision for Kansas.”

Jade Piros de Carvalho, director of the Kansas Office of Broadband Development, discusses the state's five-year action plan to expand internet services in rural areas.

Emily Wales, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, says providing reproductive health care in the state has been complicated by the loss of federal abortion rights and decades-old state restrictions. Her organization has been flooded with an influx of out-of-state visitors seeking care denied to them in their own states.

Judith Deedy, from Game On for Kansas Schools, and Lauren Tice Miller, a Shawnee Heights school board member, discuss this year's election cycle for public school board races. The two say they are concerned about a wave of misinformation being promoted by outsider groups, such as Moms for Liberty.